A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO OUR MEETING….

THE THEME OF OUR MEETING WAS: There was no theme, there was not even a Toastmaster or for that matter an Agenda!

It was getting close to starting time and our President, Sharon Patish was trying to calmly figure out what to do. Luckily, Chris Nolte volunteered to be Toastmaster for the day. Also, with great advice from Hector Hernandez and support from Sharon, Chris was able to put together a paperless Agenda. He commented that Leisha John, our Green Toatmaster would have been proud of us going paperless. Chris decided that the theme for our meeting would be “IMPROVISING ON THE FLY”, which was quite appropriate.

The meeting turned out to be one of the funniest, most entertaining meetings I have attended and many of the long-standing Toastmaster commented the same. Toastmasters and guests were bent over with laughter. We laughed so hard our sides hurt. It was hilarious, and here is how it started.

The first speaker, Jason Hesch really made us laugh. His speech was about George W. Bush’s misuse of the English language. Jason shared infamous Bush quotes and cautioned us not to fall into making the same mistakes. There were many quotes Jason shared. For example, Bush said that his opponent McCain had “misunderestimated me” and it’s the reason he won the candidacy for President. Another example, “Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?” There were many more and Jason did a fabulous job delivering his message. You had to be there!

Susan Racher was our second speaker. The title of her speech was “Out of the Clutter and Out of the Closet of a Dumpster Diva”. Susan had us laughing from start to end. After 30 years of living in the same home, she decided it needed a facelift. She felt like she was trying out for one of those HOARDER reality shows. Her aim, besides remodeling, was to simplify her life by losing clutter. In the process, she found so many things she didn’t know she had, and had no use for. She broke the process down into 6 steps starting out with the garage then moving into the house 1) where to trash the garbage? There weren’t enough Glad bags to contain all the trash. She Googled : “dumpsters” and VOILA! found them in all sizes and colors, 2) sort out, 3) create rules, do not keep what doesn’t give you joy; donate, 4) moved into house. Found gifts from mother-in-law she had never used, 5) protect things you love, label, 6) organize inside closets. She found the exercise to be the “convergence” of all episodes of her life. Now she was ready to redecorate. There were tears of regret or were they mostly tears of relief?

Table Topics are always so entertaining when Paula Hesch is the Table Topics Master. Paula was very creative, and the theme was Grab Bag. She had a bag filled with different items, which she had each contestant pull and talk about the item, or sell it or tell a story. 1) Jim Harnett pulled out a magazine, which he tried to sell as a precious document to apply to your home life on how to save your marriage and how to raise children. The advice from the magazine: don’t marry in the first place and if you don’t like children, don’t have any. 2) Virginia Wolber pulled out a tape measure. She explained how it was used in decorating just the previous week by her husband when putting up pictures in their new home. He really made it into a mathematical process. 3) Gonzalo Sanabria pulled out an American classics CD, which reminded him of his college days. When he studied he always listened to classical music and still does. 4) Roxanne Jorge pulled out a bottle of Goo Gone. She has several of these at home but doesn’t know what the product is used for. She read the label right there and then and figured out its use. 5) Hector Hernandez pulled out a trophy. He told us in amazement how he stills wonders how he pulled it off? How he managed to marry so many times? The trophy was for having the most marriages. 1st place went to Hector, 2nd place went to Roxanne, and 3rd place went to Jim. GREAT TABLE TOPICS!

The Evaluators were Jodi Johnson (1) and Sharon Patish (2). They both gave great evaluations and their feedback was quite useful. The speeches were so funny that there was not much to improve.